Herding Cats
by SnappleApple11
Summary: Bucky and Natasha are turned into cats. Shenanigans ensue.
1. Sam

**I would like to see anyone, prophet, king, or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time. – Neil Gaiman. **

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

"Steve, your so-called buddy is giving me the stink eye," Sam declared.

Steve waved him off, absorbed in the yellowed text of a book Dr. Strange had sent them to help. "He's a cat. He can't give you any kind of 'eye'."

Sam whole-heartedly disagreed. The cat in question, an overlarge and over-fluffy thing with a metallic limb in place of his front left leg, stared Sam down from the kitchen table with such intensity that Sam took several nervous steps back, effectively abandoning the glass of orange juice he'd just poured for himself.

Somehow Bucky Barnes managed to be just as terrifying as a house cat as he was as a human.

All things considered they were pretty lucky. It wasn't even anybody's fault as far as they could tell. Nobody except the ancient Nubian sorcerer who put a spell on that exact set of artifacts that Barnes and Natasha just so happened to be guarding from an attempted robbery.

The would-be thieves were caught up in the ancient booby trap same as the Soviet soulmates, and were currently locked several floors down in the Tower in what Stark had dubbed "Al-Cat-traz". But they couldn't exactly stand trial as cats, and Bucky and Nat probably didn't want to change species permanently, so…

"Don't worry Bucky, we'll find a way to change you both back," Steve promised.

"Steve, you can't read hieroglyphics," Sam pointed out. "What are you even doing with that book?"

"I just need to be doing something. I can't wait around for Strange and Wanda to figure something out," Steve replied, impatient.

Sam turned back to the fluffy cat on the table. Bucky-cat locked eyes with Sam, held his gaze, and promptly knocked over his abandoned glass of juice.

"Ok, now he's just being a little shit," Sam said, watching streams of orange juice drip off the counter onto the floor.

Steve had looked up in time to see Bucky's pettiness. "C'mon man," He sighed. Bucky-cat turned to him but only flicked his ears, uncaring and maybe even a little bit smug. Was that what that look was? Cats were too damn hard to read. Sam preferred dogs any day.

"To be fair, Sam did steal Barnes' last beer the other night. Maybe he's just getting even finally?" Clint chimed in. He had a tablet open in front of him, but not one that was going help turn their teammates back into humans. "I think maybe you're a Korat?" He said to the other cat peering over the web page with him, eyes zooming across pictures of countless felines.

To everyone's surprise, Natasha wasn't turned into a red or orange cat. Her coat was, instead, a sleek gray so steely it was almost blue. Clint was having fun trying to figure out what breed of cat Natasha was. If Nat-cat's insistent paw was anything to go by, she was sure she had the answer already.

Clint was less convinced. "Russian Blue? Come on, that's too obvious. What about a Chartreux? That sounds fun, right?"

She tapped her paw at the original picture, impatience obvious even without words.

"Fine. Be a Russian Blue. See if I care." Clint crossed his arms in an attempt to look intimidating, an impossible task in front of any cat. He stared Nat down and said, "We're still making tons of cat videos."

Nat-cat blinked at Clint for a moment, then promptly turned tail and walked away.

"Aw, come on! It'll be fun!" Clint tried to explain. "You get to star in your own Russian-cat meme!"

Natasha had already joined Bucky at the other end of the table, brushing up underneath his chin in a way that had Barnes purring loudly and Sam looking away.

Sam distantly wondered how much of their mentality was still them and how much was purely feline. He didn't honestly know if there was a real difference. A lot of the stuff that Bucky and Nat did as humans was cat-like; the near-psychic communication, general sneakiness, the menacing auras and silent threats of bodily harm…

Ok, so maybe it was still them under all that hair.

"Clint, you could take this a little more seriously," Steve said.

"And you could relax a bit, Cap," Clint replied easily. "Everyone's in the Tower and we're already working on fixing this. Plus, this isn't even in my top ten for 'weirdest-shit-ever'."

"And that makes it ok to joke about?"

"It makes it ok to not freak out over. Trust me. It could be a lot worse," Clint said.

That just made Sam think of all the cat-owner horror stories he had ever heard. All the scratched up furniture, hoarding things under said furniture, surprise hairballs, and all those tiny rodent bodies.

"I'm with Steve," Sam said. "Maybe there's no ticking doomsday clock for this thing, but the sooner we get Barnes and Romanoff back to normal, the sooner we avoid dealing with any hairballs or litterboxes."

From the wide-eyed way both Steve and Clint stared at him, Sam realized they hadn't actually thought of that. Steve immediately turned to his now-feline friend and told him firmly, "You're cleaning your own damn litterbox."


	2. Wanda and Tony

**This was supposed to be a one-off. But once again I've lied to myself and over-thought things. Have some ScarletVision, a dash of Clint Barton, and some shenanigans with Tony. **

-/-/-/-/-/

From what Clint had told her, the question of litter box cleaning duty was shelved, much to Wanda's and everyone's relief. But Wanda felt there were more important things to worry about with Bucky and Natasha now turned into cats.

Keeping track of them, for instance.

It was hard enough following their movements as humans, but as cats? They were almost impossible to find now. Crawl spaces too small for their human bodies were now secret roads for their cat-selves, while low furniture and the tops of cabinets became the best hiding places from which to spy on people.

She didn't feel they were intentionally hiding. More that they wished to explore the Tower from their new vantage point of four legs instead of two. Perhaps it gave them a sense of control over their re-shaped selves? Wanda could understand that. Wanting control over something new about yourself.

But when Wanda hopefully found a way of countering whatever magic had changed them, then both cats would need to be present. Not hiding in the air vents or lying in wait to ambush Steve as he left his rooms in the Tower. Steve had arrived at lunch earlier that day with the two cats settled victoriously on his shoulders and head, using him as a walking podium.

Naturally, Clint took several pictures.

"I'm mostly impressed they managed to get into Steve's locked rooms in the first place," Clint said. He sat backwards on one of the lab chairs, head resting on his forearms on the back of the chair. "No thumbs, you know?"

"And you're ok with not being able to keep track of them," Wanda asked. It was still a concern, but right now she was more focused on understanding the ancient symbols in front of her. Trying to understand them, in any case. She had mostly finished reviewing one text in ancient Nubian and, finding very little within its translations to help, had switched to a text in slightly more recent, but still a thousand years old, Wakandan.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. It's nothing different from what they do as people anyway. And it's only been two days since they transformed," Clint waved her worry aside, before making a face as he watched her. "You know, just 'cause a few shitty news anchors called you Scarlet 'Witch' doesn't mean you have to start brewing potions and flying on a broomstick."

"People keep calling me a witch, I might as well learn how to be a better one than Dr. Strange," She replied, mostly kidding. Clint's only response was to raise an eyebrow at her. She rolled her eyes. "I am translating text that just so happens to be magic-based and about cats. Besides, I feel I am having more luck than Steve with these translations. And this way I can help more. It's part of my job, to help however I can." She didn't miss the smile that poked through Clint's face, and turned back to the text to make sense of it.

It was true that she was doing a better job than Steve of translating the texts, but it still wasn't enough to unravel their secrets. The Nubian text described the worship of cats with reverence and told stories about their roles as messengers of the gods and even demi-gods in their own right. But the newer Wakandan text described these same cats as tricksters and cunning animals to be treated with caution and, if Wanda was translating the sentence right, even suspicion.

It made no sense. Most of Wakanda worshipped the panther god Bast. Why did such a text about cats as troublemakers exist in Wakanda?

She wanted the texts to be helpful in healing their friends, but she couldn't even be sure they were describing anything of use. It was only Dr. Strange's insistence that they belonged to ancient and long-forgotten sorcerers from the same eras as when the urns were created that gave Wanda hope there was anything of value within them. Even if Dr. Strange didn't seem to think they were worth reading.

"Strange didn't want to stick around to help?" Clint asked.

Wanda huffed at that. The Sorcerer Supreme had taken one look at the many laboratories of Tony Starks Tower, filled with chaotic, half-disassembled robots and screaming rock music, and vanished through a portal to his own magical workshop, preferring solitude and smooth jazz for his research. When Wanda offered to join him at his workshop so they could compare notes, he'd waved her aside and told her that he would find a cure himself.

Naturally, Wanda now needed to cure her friends before he could.

"Could Vision help? It'd make all of this book-work a lot less tedious."

Wanda felt her cheeks begin to heat up. Not a terrible tell, but Natasha would still be disappointed in such a lack of control.

"Someday your children will start dating and it won't seem cute anymore," Wanda said.

Clint only shrugged. "If Lila and Cooper bring home dates that can lift Thor's magic-worthiness-hammer then they've got my seal of approval, and speaking of…" He trailed off and nodded to the door at the far end of the lab. Wanda followed his eyes to see Vision walking toward her with two bowls of something warm and inviting.

She also saw the moment he realized Clint was there with her. "Oh, Agent Barton." Vision didn't stammer in embarrassment like most, stumbling over words or tripping over his feet. Instead, he became so still that Wanda felt he was willing himself not to phase through the ground below him. She wondered vaguely if Natasha would be more or less impressed with that sort of tell.

Vision recovered quickly, robotically offering her and Clint the bowls of what smelled like his latest attempt at goulash. "These are both for you." His words were just as robotic and polite, and Wanda didn't fight her smile.

Clint was clearly trying to hold back a laugh as he stood and bopped toward the door in second-hand glee. "Thanks buddy, but Wanda's worried about not being able to find Nat and Bucky for the cure so I'm gonna go track them down and prove her wrong."

Vision being Vision, he immediately offered his services, which Clint waved off. "I think Wanda would enjoy that goulash more if you joined her," He told the android.

Once the lab doors closed behind Clint, Vision finally approached her. "We seem to be missing the paprika you like," He apologized.

Wanda took the bowl from him. "I'm sure it's fine. Thank you for making this." She looked him over once more and asked, "Is that paint on your sweater?"

"Paint? But I don't acquaint myself with paint supplies?" As he turned around to examine the mysterious droplets, the purple paint on his shoulder trailed over the back of his sweater in the form of several nearly camouflaged paw prints.

"Do Bucky and Natasha acquaint themselves with paint supplies?" Wanda asked, putting two and two together.

Vision finally caught sight of the paw prints and came to the same answer. "Captain Rogers will be most displeased his paints have been tampered with in such a way."

Wanda hummed in agreement. Steve was always protective of his art supplies. It was one of the few non-Avenger activities Wanda knew him to take part in regularly.

"We should buy him more paint," Vision said.

"You read my mind. That's my job," Wanda told him, shaking her head.

"And what else is your job at the moment?" He asked, gesturing to the texts.

"Finding any useful information to break this strange curse on Bucky and Natasha," She told him, showing him the ancient texts and the translations she had worked out so far.

"I know much of what the Nubian says, but I'm still working on the Wakandan."

"Did you ask Shuri to have the texts translated for you?"

Wanda nodded, taking a slow bite of the goulash. It was too bad the good paprika was missing. There was great potential in this latest goulash otherwise. "She gave me several versions. None of them with the same meaning and none of them matching what I know about ancient Wakandan history and culture." She pointed to a small stack of papers on the corner of the table, inked red with notes and neon post-its.

Vision picked up several pages and looked through them. "Ancient Wakandan does not seem to translate well into English," He noted.

"Or Russian," Wanda added. "Or any other language I asked Shuri to translate it into. The languages have changed too much over the centuries and the true meaning is lost, even between ancient and modern Wakandan."

"Rather like old Norse and Icelandic," Vision noted. At Wanda's confusion he elaborated. "Thor once told me that Icelandic is the closest modern language to that of the Vikings he knew from centuries ago. Although he claims it just doesn't sound quite the same and the grammar is wrong, and so is nearly indecipherable."

"Of course it is," Wanda deadpanned. "Icelandic, but not Swedish or Norwegian?"

Vision shook his head 'no', and offered, "Would you like some help with the rest of the translations? Perhaps a fresh set of eyes will see something new?"

She was about to turn him down, the need to prove herself better than Dr. Strange almost enough to make her forget that she was doing all of this to help her friends. Returning her friends to normal was more important than Dr. Strange's ego or her need to solve this by herself. "Thank you. That would be nice."

Vision wordlessly reached for several more papers. They worked in easy silence over their bowls of goulash, trading small questions about verbs and conjugations. It was these easy silences that Wanda loved most about spending time with Vision. Whether working on translations or spending a Sunday morning with the crossword and some tea, Vision was a calming and thoughtful presence.

"Are we certain that Wakandan and Nubian are the only peoples described in these texts?" Vision asked eventually.

"The Nubian text mentioned some northern merchants, but I feel pretty sure. Why?"

He showed her the translation he was working on, the ancient Wakandan translating to modern Wakandan and finally into English as 'violent thieves' or 'raiders'. "Perhaps the sorcerer in question came from farther north instead? Egypt, or even the Middle East?"

"Perhaps… What is that symbol there?" Wanda asked pointing to a symbol next to 'raiders'.

"I believe that's 'crocodiles'? Or perhaps 'river beasts'?"

Wanda continued to stare at the cluster of shapes that were more geometric and angular than the others. The longer Wanda stared at them, the more familiar they looked, until…

A moment of clarity came over Wanda and she reached for the Nubian page she had looked at earlier. Laying the two pages next to each other, Wanda's fingers began scanning over both pages, searching the lines for the symbols that would answer her question. She found them in the Nubian, smiling at her realization.

"Have you found something?"

"An answer to your question. The one we should have asked in the first place about the origins of the person who cast the curse," She said.

"Ancient Egypt?"

"Not quite. But I do know who we can call to fix this curse. And it's not Stephen Strange."

"Who then?" Vision asked.

Wanda had already started pulling out her phone and searching her contacts when she paused in thought. "The team won't like it. But it is our best option."

"Should we tell Dr. Strange about your idea? This seems rather important."

Wanda bristled at that. "You can, if you really want to. I'd rather help my friends first. Whatever that takes."

Tony Stark was not a pet person.

No dogs, no birds, not even a llama or a beta fish. He never had been and never would be.

It wasn't until Pepper pointed out that the robots he'd been building since he was a teenager could be counted as pets by people who thought that having a pet was nothing more than the act of maintaining another being's existence, organic or not, that he thought maybe he might possibly be a pet person.

Rhodey had chosen that exact moment to jump in. "So by that definition Tony's my pet?"

"Our pet," Pepper corrected with the barest hint of a smile. "He does need constant attention."

Tony made a face at them. "You had to make it weird."

Tony thought describing his robots like that made it sound like he had a bunch of really expensive pet rocks. Which he did not appreciate. His robots and machines had way more sentience than pet rocks, for starters.

Anyway, people with pets always talked to them like they were tiny babies, always cooing at them and gushing over them. That kind of coddling made him squeamish. And for all that he kind of liked kids, he liked a certain amount of self-sufficiency in other people, pets, and semi-sentient robots. Plus, robots didn't need coddling the way animals seemed to.

And, in Tony's mind anyway, neither did cats. Especially temporarily-not-human cats like Romanoff, who was basically a human-cat anyway. Cats came and went as they pleased and showed up when there was food. Simple and easy.

But there wasn't any food in Tony's lab that he knew of, which was why he hadn't expected to find Natasha-the-Cat skulking around there when he showed up that morning needing to build something out of boredom. But he didn't try to kick her out when she started lounging across various pieces of equipment in what had to be the most uncomfortable cat-nap position ever. Currently, she was draped over the open tool box in front of Tony, on a bed of wrenches and hammers.

While his fingers and tools moved on auto-pilot over the circuit board, Tony yammered at her like she was the same old redhead as always instead of a verbally non-responsive cat.

"And you'd think Strange would want to set up shop in one of the labs to fix this cat-i-fication, but no! He'd rather hang out in a downtown dust cloud with elevator music! Whatever. Who needs him, right?"

Natasha said nothing, but leveled him with a flat look.

"Fine, we need him. But he's still a thieving facial hair copycat. You know, it's been a few days. If you're going to be stuck as a cat for a while we should invest in some actual cat furniture. Maybe convert one of the spare rooms or Clint's rooms. Put in tree houses and scratching towers and whatever. What do you think?"

Again, Natasha didn't say anything. She looked around the lab, tilting her head and ears at the silence.

Tony kept going. "I'll order you something online later. What does Barnes like? Actually, scratch that. I don't care."

Natasha yawned, and continued to say nothing.

If this was what having an actual cat was like, having a silent but living thing warming the space in front of you, then maybe it was worth looking into? He could adopt a cat or five, let them roam around the Tower and just let FRIDAY feed them on a schedule. The only real training they needed was to use a litterbox, and how hard could that be?

Tony held up their one-sided conversation, glancing at Nat occasionally to see if she was paying attention. It was only as his running monologue drifted from cat furniture to potential combinations of circuitry and magic that he finally noticed where Natasha's eyes kept flicking to and turned to face the door.

Nothing there. He shrugged, turning back to his workbench. Somewhere to his left he heard the faintest 'clink' of metal on floor and turned toward the noise, only to be met with nothing again.

Tony frowned and fidgeted in his seat, not wanting to admit his lab was possibly haunted because ghosts absolutely did not exist and no Sorcerer-Goatee-Wannabe-Supreme would ever convince him otherwise.

He tried to shake the thought aside and went back to his circuit board. Romanoff stared off at various points in the lab from her perch, tail and ears flicking in non-interest. He still didn't understand why she thought a bunch of wrenches and wire-cutters were at all comfy enough to lounge on, but he still didn't care enough to want to move her either. It wasn't like he needed anything else from that box yet anyway. Except the super glue later, but that was a problem for Later-Tony.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours, or seconds, Tony could never tell in the lab, but all it took to pull him from his Zone was another clink of metal on surface. This time, he whirled around fast enough to catch sight of the Winter-Fluff jumping onto a nearby bench, the metal of his front limb clinking against the metal bench.

Barnes froze comically, wide-eyed and tense in the way Tony had seen cats when they were startled. But he held Tony's gaze, challenging him to a silent staring-contest.

Were it any other cat, or any other person, Tony would have brushed them off. But this was Barnes. And not wanting to be outdone by a cat, especially the cat-that-used-to-be-the-assassin-that-brainwashedly-killed-his-parents, Tony stared him down. Unblinking. Daring Barnes to yield.

The longer he stood his ground against the cat though, the more that Tony thought maybe the not-blinking thing wasn't the best idea. His eyes started watering, his focus shifted, and his eyelids threatened to shut, but Goddamnit the Manchurian Candidate wasn't gonna win this!

He just needed to startle Barnes into defeat (Yes Pepper, it would still count as a win. A win is a win however it happens). Maybe get Dum-E to bump into something or flicker one of the lights. No, that'd take too long, and Barnes would notice.

Oh well, Ockham's razor then.

Tony was ready to lurch from his seat in a sneak attack, but in that instant, Barnes deflated, shaking his furry head and breaking eye contact with Tony.

The cat meowed vaguely and hopped off the bench.

Tony blinked moisture back into his eyes and gaped at the cat. "What, that's it? You're just gonna give me some eyes and walk away?"

Barnes sauntered toward the lab entrance, metal limb somehow hardly making a sound on the floor. If Tony didn't know any better he'd think Barnes almost looked smug in his defeat. Who'd ever be proud they'd lost? Weirdo.

Once Tony was satisfied that Barnes had well and truly left his sanctuary, he told FRIDAY to not let any cats into the lab for the rest of the day and turned back to his workbench.

"You have weird taste in men, Romanoff," He informed the other cat sagely, only to be met with an emptier sort of silence. He looked up and found the second cat gone, her perch on top of the tool box empty as though it had never been occupied.

Tony glanced around the lab but there was no sign of Nat-cat anywhere. The entire lab looked to be entirely cat-free. He hummed. "Yeah, robots are still better."

Tony had just started finding his Zone again with the circuit board when several taps against the lab doorway interrupted him.

"Knock, knock. Anybody home?" Clint turned the corner from the hall into the doorway of the lab. "Have you seen Nat and Barnes?"

"You just missed them Legolas. They went… Somewhere. I don't know. Hey, how do you feel about having a cat-treehouse in your rooms? You know, when you're not splitting time between here and the farm."

Clint gave a thumbs up, looked vaguely lost for a moment, and waltzed on.

Tony shrugged and finally went back to work on the circuit board, holding a screw in place and reaching blindly into the toolbox, only to come up empty. "Where's my super glue?"

-/-/-/-/


	3. Pepper

**Brief appearances by Pepper and Happy**

-/-/-/-/-/-/

"I think it's cute, magical curse aside," Pepper insisted. She glanced at the paradoxically soft-looking ball of highly-trained feline fluff currently wandering aimlessly around her office, head darting this way and that to whatever caught his attention. She'd found Bucky like that when she walked into her office after lunch and was charmed enough by the quaintness of the moment that she just didn't have the heart to question how he'd gotten into the still-locked space.

The man sitting across from her desk snorted in disagreement. "Spies don't do 'cute' unless they have to, remember?" Happy Hogan stated, staring at the cat with a frown. "He's up to something. They both are."

Pepper fought the urge to roll her eyes. "What could Natasha and Bucky possibly be up to? They're among friends and colleagues in one of the safest rooms of perhaps the most impenetrable building on Earth. And Bucky is also well within earshot of us."

Happy continued to stare at Bucky, but the attention didn't go both ways. Bucky's focus and cat-self had settled on a flower vase in the corner. Calling it a vase was simplifying things. It was actually an over-priced, three-foot-tall urn whose sides were artfully covered by a cascade of thick purple flowers pouring over the edges to reach the floor; Also known as an "I'm sorry Dum-E burned our home-cooked dinner and emptied the fire extinguisher onto your nice dress" apology from Tony last week.

They'd gotten their home-cooked dinner eventually, sans Dum-E.

"Now where's my letter opener? Oh, I'll just use a pen," Pepper muttered, sifting through her desk drawers for something to open her mail with.

"And it was just Barnes in here when you got back? No Romanoff?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. I didn't see her."

"Barnes knows Tony likes to come in here, right?" Happy pressed, turning back to her.

Pepper waved him aside. "Yes, I'm sure Bucky's aware. Just like he knows that I have personally told him he is welcome in _my_ office," Pepper said, definitive. "If wandering like this helps him feel more comfortable, than he's welcome to do so."

Where Clint was happy to let Natasha and Bucky wander wherever their cat selves pleased, only half-heartedly making note of where they showed up, Happy was siding with Steve Rogers, and going a step further by making it his personal mission to track their movements. Consequently, whenever the cats did miraculously show up for an hour, the finder was required to call Happy and tell him where they were. Required, but not in any enforceable way.

It didn't stop Pepper from telling Happy that the paranoia and power of being Tony's head of security had gone to his head and maybe he ought to take a vacation somewhere semi-remote. Maybe Palau? Or northern Sweden?

"I just don't trust them like this. There's something off about whatever magic voodoo turned them into cats," Happy insisted.

This time Pepper did roll her eyes. "I'm almost certain it wasn't voodoo, if that makes you feel any better. And Wanda and Dr. Strange have both been on the case for the last three days. They'll find a cure."

A muffled 'Meow' sounded from the floor and Pepper turned to see Bucky sitting politely next to her desk, a stalk of purple flowers held tightly between his teeth. Pepper glanced toward the urn and saw the end of one flower vine had been ripped off unceremoniously.

She set her face to its most graciously apologetic. "Oh, that's very sweet, but you really shouldn't have."

Bucky jumped onto her desk and dropped the flowers in front of her, gesturing toward them.

Happy laughed. "Don't let Romanoff know you're giving flowers to other ladies. I wouldn't want to get on her bad side."

Bucky twisted to face Happy, staring at him as though he'd forgotten the man was there, before jumping off the desk to the urn again. Pepper's protests fell on deaf cat-ears as Bucky jumped head first into the urn and used his teeth to rip off another long flower vine, his metal limb clinking on the floor and glinting in the afternoon sun as he landed with his prize. He then ripped the vine in half and carried the shorter half to Happy.

Jumping into the man's lap and brusquely dropping the flowers, Bucky made a noise that almost sounded like a 'tsk'. He turned and grabbed the third vine piece in his teeth and, with a brisk walk toward the office door, paused to turn expectantly toward them.

It took Pepper a moment to realize what he wanted. "FRIDAY, could you let Bucky out, please?"

The doors slid open and Bucky sauntered off, presumably to give the flowers to Natasha.

After a beat, Happy said, "I think that was supposed to be cute."

"So why didn't it feel cute?" Pepper agreed, examining the flowers on her desk.

Happy stood up to leave. "I'll follow Barnes for now, but I'm gonna need some back up to keep track of both of them. Do you think Tony will let me use a couple of drones?"


	4. Bruce and Steve

**Let's hear from somebody new. How about Bruce? And Steve too?**

-/-/-/-/-/

When Natasha and Bucky were first outed as a couple (Courtesy of a well-meaning Steve Rogers with a pair of ballet tickets for his best pal and his best pal's girl), Bruce had been on the receiving end of several long suffering looks from Tony and even Pepper.

He knew why. But he still didn't understand the need for those looks.

Bruce and Natasha had never actually been, as Tony claimed the kids called it, 'A Ship'. There was a moment they could have been, but the stars just hadn't lined up for them and as time passed they realized they wanted different things anyway. Bruce was glad to call Natasha a friend nowadays, and things had been civil between them ever since.

Looking at the mostly massacred remains of his herbal tea supply on the kitchen counter, however, Bruce had to wonder if there wasn't some hidden resentment finally being released in the form of uncontrolled feline vengeance.

"Have you been reading those romance novels? 'Cause that's what this idea of yours sounds like. And how do you know which one of them it was, anyway? It could've been Barnes," Rhodey told him after inspecting the tea-leaf crime scene. "And I'm pretty sure the mess is just because your tea is smelly. I could smell it in the halls on my way here. Imagine how a cat must feel? With their noses being so good?"

Bruce frowned. "But cats aren't dogs. They don't smell like dogs do."

"Still have better noses than people," Rhodey said. "I thought you had a bunch of PhDs? You didn't learn any of this?"

Rhodey was recruited into Happy's search for the wayward cats once it came to light that they hadn't been seen since two days before in Pepper's office. Steve insisted on helping too, to the surprise of no one, and even drafted an unconvinced Clint into the search to scour the upper floors, storage units, and vents.

Rhodey brought back the issue at hand. "Nat and/or Barnes were definitely here, so where are they now?"

Bruce shrugged. "I wasn't too worried about tracking them. I still don't get what the big deal is? FRIDAY would tell us if they left the Tower, right?"

"FRIDAY can't even tell us where they are right now. Something about the protocols Nat put in place when she and Barnes were human to protect their privacy. And if they're messing with us like this too, then I want to know where they are."

"Messing with us?"

"They got into Steve's paints the other day," Rhodey explained. "He's not happy. It ended up on Vision's sweaters somehow too. Plus, my shoes are missing."

Bruce frowned, concerned. "Shoes go missing. It happens."

Rhodey gestured toward his feet, where Bruce finally noticed a familiar pair of bright green crocs that had gone missing from his own closet only yesterday. "My left shoes. These were the only paired shoes in my closet here, and I know I didn't buy these."

Bruce bit his tongue about the shoes, and instead tried to reason with Rhodey's growing concern. "Maybe it's not about messing with anyone? Wanda said they're probably just testing the limits of their new bodies. Changing into a totally different body isn't easy and it takes years to feel like you have any real control over it. Believe me."

That seemed to calm Rhodey down. He even looked a little guilty as he shifted on robotically-assisted legs. "If you really think it's just about them being comfortable in their bodies and getting back some control… It's still a shitty way of doing it, messing with everyone like that."

"Agreed, very rude and very shitty. We'll put them in cat time-out or something once they're found and make them show you where your shoes are."

A thundering voice interrupted the moment from just outside the hallway. "Who has engaged in wedded bliss while I was away and why was I neither invited nor informed?" Thor seemed genuinely upset at the notion of being left out, but in the moment all Bruce could think of was that Thor looked like a sulking kid who'd been told that no, he couldn't have a cookie when he'd already had ice cream.

"What?"

"Are cats no longer a traditional wedding present?" Thor asked. "The Midgardians I knew in Scandinavia often gifted cats to newlyweds as part of a new household. Who has built a new home within the Tower?"

"Nobody got married Thor," Bruce assured him. "And aren't you supposed to be in Wakanda talking with T'Challa? One king to another?"

Rhodey jumped in before Thor could answer. "Wait. You saw the cats? Where are they?"

"I know not, but I look forward to meeting these fine warriors and household caretakers." Thor motioned to a clump of technology in his hands. On closer inspection, the clump turned out to be the ruined form of what was once a small surveillance drone, gutted of its wiring like a disemboweled rodent.

Rhodey noted mockingly, "Oh, great. Forget the shoes and paint. They're leaving murder presents now."

"Tech murder presents," Bruce said. "Tony won't be happy."

Rhodey rolled his eyes and sarcastically groaned, "Don't worry about it, Rhodey! They're just getting control of their new bodies! Bullshit. The spy cats have perfect control and this proves it. We need to find them and put an end to this."

"Spy cats?" Thor asked. "I don't understand. Why would cats be sent on any mission?"

"It's Natasha and Bucky. They were magically turned into cats. Wanda and Strange have been trying to figure out how to change them back but I'm starting to think there's more to it than just a species-swap," Rhodey explained.

"Such as?"

"They're messing with us," Rhodey said, increasingly grim. "Bruce's tea was violently liberated from its packaging all over the counter. I'm missing my left shoes. Hell, Tony said some of his tools are missing."

Thor raised an eyebrow at that. "That sounds… mischievous? This must be what Wanda's message was about."

Bruce asked, "Wanda called you?"

"Well, she called Korg, who called Valkyrie, who retrieved me," Thor explained. "None of them would say what it was regarding. Where is Wanda?"

"The lab on floor 39, I think?" Bruce told him. "That's where she was yesterday."

With an assured nod, Thor waltzed off in a flourish. Bruce half expected there to be a cape billowing after the demi-god, but another question struck him instead. "Why call Thor for magic help?"

Rhodey shook his head. "No idea. I'm gonna tell Steve and Clint about the spilled tea and Thor being here."

"And your shoes?"

"Especially my shoes."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

The last thing Steve wanted was to play mother hen to his friends. But their newly miniaturized selves weren't making it easy. It'd be better if he or anyone else in the Tower could keep track of them. But Happy had caved and asked for help in locating Bucky and Natasha, which Steve and Rhodey were all too willing to provide. Even if it meant scouring the bottomless dust bins that were Tony Stark's in-Tower storage units.

"You're the one who wanted to check every nook and cranny Cap," Clint told him through the comms they were using for this domestic mission. "That means _every_ nook and cranny."

Steve coughed through a burst of dust as he shifted several boxes. "I'm flashing back to being asthmatic; these units are practically breeding dust bunnies. How are you not hacking up a lung right now in those vents?"

"Who says I'm not?" Clint told him, adding, "There's these purple flowers and some of Bruce's tea superglued to the sensors in here. Does smell kind of nice, though, even if it is making the whole building smell like a super aggressive tea garden. That's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? An aggressive tea garden?"

"Hang on, what's super-glued in there?"

"Don't worry about it, Cap. Tony's got a bot or two up here to help with maintenance, so it's not as bad as what you're probably dealing with. Guess Tony doesn't have bots in the storage units, huh?"

"I guess. They're usually not this dirty though," Steve agreed. He tugged at his shirt, covered in dust and grime, and frowned. As humans, Bucky and Natasha were some of the most overly competent people he'd ever known. As cats with whereabouts unknown, they were mildly terrifying. "Do you think they messed with the ventilation system on purpose?"

He thought Clint snorted over the comms, but it was hard to tell through the static. "C'mon, that's just mean-spirited. This is Nat and Bucky Barnes! They're cats right now, but this whole thing is just one giant game of hide-and-seek."

"And what about Rhodey telling us that his left shoes are missing?"

Clint paused for beat. "That's just funny. Grade-school funny, but still funny."

There were plenty of times Clint proved himself a mature adult and father figure. The cat-ification of their friends was not one of them.

Steve groaned. "I really wish you'd take this more seriously."

"I take life's pleasures when and where I can, Cap. Learned to do that the hard way."

Steve bit back a sigh, glanced around the storage unit once more and decided, "I'm going to change my shirt, then we can check the vent entryways again once you're done inside the vents themselves."

"Roger, Rogers."

He didn't wash his clothes with every wear the way most people seemed to nowadays, but Steve had come to appreciate the closetful of clean clothes he now owned and could change into with any frequency he chose. It was something Natasha had told him in the early days of their friendship, when he'd pointed out that she had changed outfits four times in one day.

She'd very nearly rolled her eyes at him. "I've gone weeks in the same shirt and underwear on missions, Rogers. I think I've earned the right to change my clothes whenever I damn well please."

Back in his rooms Steve opened his closet, thinking about maybe changing pants too, when he noticed what smelled like Bruce's tea and a duffel bag he didn't recognize tucked behind some shoes. Once unzipped, it took several moments for the contents of the duffel to shuffle through Steve's mind into some noticeable shape and coherence. Stupidly, all Steve could think to say at his grand revelation was, "Huh."

His second, more intelligible thought, was to have Clint meet him in the room and have the archer take a look at the duffel too. Ten minutes later, Clint was next to him with the same gap-jawed face and questioning "Huh."

"My thoughts exactly," Steve told him. He knelt and pulled out a small container of paprika. "How'd this stuff even get in here?"

"Five bucks says it was our wayward Commie-Cats."

Steve made a face at Clint. "I figured it was them. I just want to know how they physically got all this stuff inside my rooms without my knowing." He pulled out several empty bottles of super glue. "And why _this _stuff. This is just weird."

Clint shrugged. "Wait, isn't that-?"

"A letter opener, yeah. Probably one of Peppers. Plus, a loaded SIG Sauer and one of your exploding arrows."

"So they're hoarding things?" Clint asked, sounding a little worried. "Do you think they're hoarding stuff because they left caches as humans, or because it's a cat thing?"

Glad as Steve was that Clint was taking things seriously now, he didn't like that it was under the current circumstances. "I genuinely don't know."

"Frankly, Cap, that's kind of terrifying. And if the tea in the vents was really them too… You don't think they'll get more chaotic-evil the longer they stay like this, do you?"

"I'm not waiting to find out," Steve said, standing up suddenly. "We really need to find them and change them back. What did Wanda and Strange say about a cure?"

"Strange hasn't said jack shit except that he's working on it, but Rhodey said Wanda called Thor and he showed up earlier."

"And he left already? We could use another set of eyes."

Clint shrugged helplessly. "She said he was getting something to turn Nat and Barnes back to normal. Still want to search the vent entryways again?"

Something about the contents of the duffel were bothering Steve, and the more he thought about it, the more annoyed he got. "Who haven't they messed with yet?"

Clint counted off on his fingers. "Well, your paint ended up on Vision's sweater and the stash is in your closet; Tony's missing tools and the empty bottles of super glue are here; Bruce's tea was demolished and is currently odorizing the Tower; One of my arrows and Wanda's paprika are in here; Rhodey's shoes are still missing; Bucky or Nat's SIG Sauer is here; And you're pretty sure that letter opener is from Pepper's office."

"Thor and Sam," Steve realized.

"Didn't Barnes knock over Sam's orange juice?"

"But none of his things are in the bag. And Thor's not in the Tower a lot anymore, so Sam's probably the next target."

"Does that mean he's the canary in the coal mine?" Clint said.

Steve pulled an uncomfortable face. "I don't think that's the right metaphor." He turned to the doorway, wanting to find Sam and hopefully find Bucky and Natasha, when he spotted Natasha entering said doorway, dragging an open box of Thor's favorite pop-tarts.

"Nat?"

Natasha whipped her head around, ripping the cardboard top off by accident, and froze. Her eyes locked on them in surprise, and it spoke volumes to how out of character she must have been as a cat that she hadn't noticed them already in the room.

Clint stepped forward slowly, hands up in placation. "Hey you. Pretty funny taking Rhodey's shoes. Laura's gonna love hearing about it. Why don't you and Barnes come with me to the farm and we can re-enact the whole thing?"

She stared at them another moment then, quick as she'd been seen, she darted off again, abandoning the pop-tarts as Steve and Clint ran after her.

They followed her through winding halls, rooms, and multiple floors, but even super soldier serum was no match for a runaway cat.

"Shit! She's gone."

"Language," Clint teased.

"We're not on camera, Clint," Steve groaned. "We can't keep chasing after them. We've got to get them to come to us."

"How? There's no rhyme or reason to any of the stuff they're taking except that it belongs to each of us. What stuff of Sam's are they even gonna grab?"

"Let's find Sam first. We'll come up with a list on the way."

-/-/-/


	5. Sam 2

**Back with Sam. Let's find out what the gang's up to. **

-/-/-/-/-/

Sam didn't like when Clint Barton was serious. It meant shit was probably going to hit the fan and things were actually more serious than the archer let on.

Case in point, Clint's face matching Steve's as they told him about a duffel bag cache of randomness, put together by the dynamic duo of espionage. Sam especially didn't like it when they told him their plan to catch the wayward cats.

"For the record, I hate this," He told them.

"For the record, we're not huge fans either," Clint told him.

His shirts were bait. Specifically, the purple ones that were kind of the same color as Vision's paw painted sweaters and the flowers from Pepper's office. The idea was, Bucky and/or Nat would probably cover them in Steve's paint and/or drag them to their duffel stash for safe keeping and/or rip them to shreds out of chaotic-evil boredom. When they hopefully showed up, it was just a matter of steering them into one of the nets now lying around Sam's Tower rooms.

Even with Sam and Clint covering the only doorway, Steve and Rhodey with eyes on the vent entrances around the hall, and Happy monitoring the security feeds, there were still a lot of cat-sized gaps to squeeze through unnoticed. It didn't help any that they'd all been camped out watching their respective spots for two hours already. And Sam was getting sick of feeling like a kid jumping at shadows every time a light flickered over the door.

"You'd be a shit sniper," Clint told him, poking Sam's jittering leg. "Quit it with the Elvis leg."

"Well excuse me for wanting to get this damn show on the road. They're hoarding literal bombs and messing with our air. I want action and results," Sam snapped. "And you each owe me new shirts. No matter what happens to these, I'm getting new shirts."

"I'll get you a Hawaiian tourist shirt." Clint chirped. "Covered in pineapples wearing hula skirts and riding surf boards."

Steve groaned over the comms. "I'll buy you a damn wardrobe, Sam. Now can we please focus? Or does anyone else have a special request?"

"I've got a question," Happy interrupted. "Did Tony finally send more drones for the search?"

"Doubt it," Rhodey said. "Not after the robo-massacre of the last batch."

"Well then, we've got movement on floor 40, just outside the labs," Happy told them.

"What kind of movement?"

"Not drone, and it's too small to be human."

Clint thought briefly. "Sam, didn't you give Tony your wingsuit for some upgrades? Was that on 40?"

Sam shook his head. "Yeah, but he finished that last month. The only other thing I asked him to look at was-" Sam cut himself off, the thought hitting him suddenly. "Shit! They're going after Redwing!"

He sprinted from the doorway, Clint on his heels and Steve in his ear telling FRIDAY to lock down the lab on 40. Sam and Clint didn't bother with the elevators. They jumped the stairs three at a time and burst out of the stairwell, racing down the hall. By the time they reached the lab doors though, it was too late. Bucky was already inside, pulling apart Redwing's panels to skewer the circuitry within.

"Barnes! What the hell?" Sam cried, pounding on the glass door and pulling the cats attention.

"FRIDAY's already got the lab sealed off. He's not going anywhere," Clint tried to reassure him.

But when Bucky started to drag the drones remains toward a suspiciously open panel along the wall, Sam had a sinking feeling the cat wasn't as trapped as they would've liked. "FRIDAY, let us in!"

The doors opened and Sam made a beeline for Barnes, who dropped his prize to escape. Sam grabbed at the cat, but was too slow and left pulling at air. Even as he grabbed again and again, each time Barnes was just out of reach. When Sam reached for him one more time, his feet twisted under him and he threw his foot out at random to stay upright, accidently landing on Barnes' over-sized duster of a tail.

Barnes howled below his foot, and from above came a rush of claws landing on Sam's head, latching on with a screech.

"Ow! Goddammit!"

Clint managed to pull the second cat off Sam. "Nat, you're off the rails. We need to put you both in cat time-out."

Natasha was having none of it, and tried valiantly to free herself from Clint's hold. In the confusion, Sam managed to get a grip on one of Bucky's limbs and held on for dear life, enduring vibranium scratches and hissing all the while.

Steve and Rhodey chose that moment to show up like a pair of knights in shining armor, wielding the nets from Sam's rooms to restrain Nat and Bucky.

"Buck, stop it!" Steve tried to calm his friend down. Barnes clawed and hissed as he tried to escape the nets twisting around him. "We're trying to help you! You're not yourself!"

Every writhing movement tangled Nat and Barnes even more, but it also trapped their respective captor's arms in further knots. Caught as they all were, it was effective enough to keep them restrained as the group moved from the lab to the elevator and down to one of the available interrogation rooms. Once the cats were locked inside, Sam, Steve, Clint, and Rhodey retreated to the other side of the two-way mirror to talk options.

"We can't keep them in there. It's basically a cage," Steve pleaded. "There's got to be somewhere else secure we can keep them until Wanda and Strange figure out how to change them back."

"Or at least until Thor gets back with whatever he was talking to Wanda about," Sam said.

On the other side of the glass, Nat and Bucky had finally untangled themselves from the netting and were pawing at each other's bruises and aches. They turned to the mirror, eyes unblinking and penetrative in that eerie way cats had, and Sam was sure they were somehow looking straight into his head. Eventually, they turned back to each other and, in silent cat agreement, curled around each other on the table for a long wait.

Clint said, "We could put some tracker collars on them and I can take them to the farm. They might feel less trapped and Laura did say there are some rats hiding in the barn."

Steve groaned. "I thought you were finally taking this seriously, Clint."

"I am! I seriously have a rodent problem at the farm! This is just two birds and one stone. Sam can come with me and then we'll really be two birds."

Sam shook his head. "Not a chance. We're keeping them in the tower. Why don't we just leave them in Steve's rooms with a couple of babysitters and some tuna cans? They kept hiding things there, maybe there won't be as big a chance they leave?"

"It's as good an idea as any," Rhodey agreed. "Let's maybe get Tony to add a few more security features in place. Plug up some of the leaks, I mean."

Steve sighed, and crossed his arms tightly in the way Sam recognized as Steve Rogers only begrudgingly agreeing to something because even he couldn't think of a better idea. "Fine, just let me pull some stuff out of the room beforehand. I don't need Bucky and Nat going through the rest of my things."

Sam practically saw the lightbulb go off over Rhodey's head. "Hold on a sec." Rhodey pushed a button on the wall and the intercom crackled to life in the interrogation room. Bucky and Nat hissed in annoyance, curling in on each other at the intrusion. "Barnes, Romanoff, I want a straight answer out of both of you," Rhodey demanded. "Where the hell are my shoes?"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/

**Poor Rhodey! All that and he still doesn't have his shoes**


	6. Clint and Rhodey

**How about some time with Clint and then Rhodey? This one's a little shorter, but one more chapter after this y'all!**

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

To be fair, Clint did offer to host Bucky and Nat at the farm. It wasn't his fault that everyone thought he was joking about wanting to deal with his rodent problem. Now though, he was kind of glad he didn't bring Natasha and Bucky to the farm after all. Clint had a strong stomach, but after seeing the gutting of Tony's drones he was reassured that he didn't want his kids seeing that kind of gore enacted on any living creatures; rodent interlopers or otherwise.

So while Sam, Bruce, and Rhodey went looking for Rhodey's shoes in the Tower loading bay, where Nat and Bucky had finally let slip the shoes were hidden, Clint and Steve babysat the cats. It mostly involved listening to the TV while keeping both eyes peeled as Bucky and Natasha explored the space. They jumped off the furniture from worrying heights, inspected how their paws felt against different surfaces, and occasionally threw things in front of the TV for shits and giggles.

"So what's it like being a literal ball of fluff?" Clint asked Bucky, hoping to distract him from further chaos. "And how are you even keeping your fur so clean? Did Tony set up a cat-wash for you? He didn't use my space, did he?"

Bucky ignored him and kept flicking bits of un-canned tuna at the screen, timing his assault to hit the character's mouths.

"Cats have hair, not fur," Steve pointed out, watching Bucky successfully stick a piece of tuna to the screen. "Isn't that why we say cats have hairballs, not furballs?"

The mention of hairballs made Clint chuckle. "Well at least we still haven't had to deal with any of those."

There was a suspicious pause in Bucky's fish-assault. Long enough for Clint to start worrying and for the patented 'Steve-Rogers-is-disappointed-in-you' face to make another appearance.

"Buck…"

The fish-assault resumed in full force and it was then that Clint noticed Natasha emerging from under the bed, and went to investigate. Lifting up the edge of the blankets, Clint found a single left shoe hiding under the frame.

He reached and pulled the shoe free, letting loose several pens, crumpled papers, and… Yep, those were definitely a couple hairballs inside.

Steve turned to face Nat and Bucky while pointing to the mess now oozing out of Rhodey's rediscovered shoe. "You're both cleaning that."

Nat stared at him, daring and smug. Clint thought he knew what was going on in her head, a sort of 'You figured this bit out. Big deal. What are you possibly going to do about it?'

"Is this what you did with Rhodey's shoes? You hid them in weird places as mini-caches and hairball dispensaries? I'm not even mad. I'm kind of impressed. That kind of attention to hygiene takes thoughtfulness," Clint said. He hoped his tried-and-true parenting skills could finally be of use. "But since you definitely didn't hide all the hairballs in this one shoe, it'd be great if you showed us-"

"Bucky, are the other shoes even in the loading bay?" Steve interrupted, getting right to the point. When Barnes pointedly looked everywhere except at his best friend, Steve crossed his arms and leveled a stern look at him that did nothing to convince the cat of confessing anything. "The shoes, Buck. Where are the other shoes and what else did you hide inside them?"

Clint was sure spies could learn a lot from cats about surviving interrogations and questionings. There was just no getting any information out of them. "Rhodey and the others are looking now. They'll find the shoes."

"The way we searched this tower just looking for Bucky and Nat? Not a chance. We didn't skip the loading bay either. If the shoes were in the tower, we would've found them by now," Steve pointed out.

Natasha lounged next to Bucky, the pair of cats settled in and curled around each other like they were watching a movie. Their cuddling, though highly adorable, did nothing to make them any less suspicious and the expectant looks on their furry faces got Clint thinking about anything he might have missed relating to the whereabouts of Rhodey's left shoes.

Because Steve was right. If the shoes had been left lying around they would have run into them at some point in their cat scavenger hunt of the tower. So in that case…

"Aw crap," Clint finally realized. "Nat, tell me you didn't."

"What?"

"Steve, you're right."

It took Steve a minute to catch up, but once he did, he threw his arms up in exasperation. "God dammit Bucky!"

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Rhodey almost wished he was on cat-sitting duty with Clint and Steve. Watching the cats fling bits of stuff at a television in Steve's locked room was probably a lot less frustrating than the hapless search for his wayward shoes.

"We've already searched the Tower top to bottom looking for Nat and Barnes. Why hasn't anybody found my shoes in all this?" Rhodey asked no one in particular.

"We're dealing with trained spies. Don't you think if they wanted us to find your shoes we would've?" Sam pointed out, very unhelpful but very right.

"You'd think them telling us to search the loading bay would be helpful, but no, fat chance of that," Rhodey complained.

Sam shoved more boxes aside, narrowly avoiding a cardboard avalanche, and added to the growing list of grievances, "It's bad enough we need two people watching Barnes and Nat, but we still couldn't get Tony to help. Remind me why he's still not helping?"

Happy chimed in, moving toward them from the other side of a truck, "He said if he messed with Romanoff that would give her permission to mess with him. Or something like that."

Sam grimaced next to him. "I hate that that sounds right," He said, moving to check underneath another truck.

"At least he's learning?" Happy offered.

"Took him long enough," Rhodey snorted. As he looked through the loading bay, he tried imagining what he would do if he were a cat hell-bent on hiding other people's things. The short answer was; he wouldn't take other people's shit in the first place. But that wasn't who he was dealing with. So Rhodey was going to have to put on his spy-hat and think sneaky thoughts.

Rhodey looked inside half-open boxes, under shelves, and even climbed some of the shelving to get a view of the tops of the trucks. Not that anything would've stuck to the tops of the semis, but just in case.

It was while he was climbing down from said shelving that he caught sight of something shiny and out of place in the crevasse between two boxes. The space was just large enough for him to squeeze an arm through and for his fingers to slowly edge the mysterious object out of its hiding place.

Finally pulling the object free, Rhodey made it to the ground and began inspecting it. "What the hell? Why is this super glue here?"

Happy joined him in the inspection. "Is that a paw print? Do you think Barnes and Romanov were using this bottle for something?"

A terrible thought occurred to Rhodey as he looked back up at the truck parked in front of them. There was an empty super glue bottle in the cache in Steve's room, and now this half empty bottle here in the loading bay. Did that mean...? But that was too crazy. Too malicious. Everything Bucky and Natasha had done so far was small scale, contained to the tower and easily fixed. To do something like '_that'_ would just be out of character. But then again, Natasha and Bucky had shown they weren't exactly themselves lately…

"Hey, check this out." Sam crawled out from under the truck with a shoe in hand, confirming Rhodey's fear.

"That's mine!" Rhodey leapt forward and grabbed his left shoe from Sam. Once he did, the contents of the shoe spilled out; clumps of paper clips, Kleenex, and hairballs fell to the floor with a clattering and wet splat.

Rhodey and the others shared looks of equal disgust.

"It was super-glued under the truck," Sam explained.

Rhodey whirled on Sam. "And this was the only shoe you found under there? Are you telling me my shoes are super-glued under trucks that they aren't even in the tower anymore?"

"Steve did say they needed to clean up after themselves. Maybe this is how their cat brains interpreted 'getting rid of the evidence'?" Happy tried to suggest.

"Should we be glad they have enough of themselves left mentally to even think of doing that?" Sam added.

FRIDAY blessedly chimed in, accented voice echoing off the walls of the loading bay like a choir in church. "Sirs, Miss Maximoff tells me that Thor has called. He's on his way to the tower with help and requests you make your way to the kitchen as soon as possible."

Rhodey perked up. "Really? He is?"

"Should we call Strange? Tell him Thor's back with something to help Bucky and Natasha?" Sam asked.

FRIDAY interrupted before Rhodey could reply. "Miss Maximoff has requested that Dr. Strange not be informed yet. Mr. Stark has seconded this request."

"And Pepper?" Rhodey asked, knowing full well Pepper's access to the AI.

After a meaningful pause. "Miss Potts has Dr. Strange's number at the ready should it be necessary."

Rhodey nodded. "That's what I thought. Let's go then. The sooner the Soviet cats are human again, the sooner they can tell me with actual human voices which trucks they stuck my shoes under."

-/-/-/-/-/-

**Next chapter is the last one! Read and Review!**


	7. Sam 3

**End of the road for this piece. Let's end things where we started them, with Sam. Leave a note if you've enjoyed the nonsense!**

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Sam and the others waited together in the kitchen for Thor. Despite the urgency of the demi-god's phone call, it still took him several hours to show up. Thor finally strolled into the kitchen sometime in the evening with a grin the size of Texas. "Friends! I come with glad tidings to remedy the situation at hand! Where are Lady Romanoff and her Soldier of Winter?"

Steve jumped in. "You found something to turn them back?"

"Indeed, or rather I've brought someone who can. Brother!"

The tension in the room skyrocketed as Loki waltzed in, flanked by the ever-intimidating Valkyrie watching him with eagle eyes. Loki's stride grew smugger with every step as he took in the defensive poses of the Avengers. Sam joined Steve in moving in front of the cats. Clint reached under the chair for one of the guns Natasha kept on hand throughout the tower. Nat-cat had even darted in front of Bucky and snarled at the demi-god.

Loki zeroed in on the two cats, eying Natasha curiously. "So this is love, Agent Romanov," He mused. "How interesting. Is his ledger as red as yours, then?"

Natasha hissed again and extended her claws in a show of intimidation. For his part, Bucky looked half bored with the whole thing. It was only if you paid attention that you spotted how tense he was, ready to spring into action.

Valkyrie cleared her throat loudly, hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Loki rolled his eyes but took a step back.

Thor tried to intervene. "Loki's fine to help! He's been instrumental in the relocation of Asgard's people on Earth and he hasn't caused mischief in weeks!"

Sam was rightly skeptical. "Remind us how many months he's been on Earth."

Thor added, "It's his spell in the first place."

Steve pointed out, "Those urns are ancient. Curses last that long?"

"Spell, not curse," Loki corrected. Nobody cared.

Sam asked, "I thought you stayed with the Vikings when you came here. When did you ever go to ancient Nubia?"

"With nine realms and the whole of Midgard open to us, why stay in one miserable corner?" At Sam and the other's continued stares, Loki shrugged. "Thor was being himself in Scandinavia so I tried starting a war between the Nubians and Wakandans to lessen my boredom."

"A thousand years ago with cursed urns and jars?"

"Not my best work. It might have been better had I created the urns myself. The cats were meant to steal valuables and cause general chaos but there was just no controlling them." Loki waved his own words aside, quickly adding, "The war never did come to pass, mind you. I should get some credit for that."

"I still don't buy it. He's tried to kill us too many times to suddenly be helpful," Clint said, gun still leveled at Loki.

It was then that Wanda and Vision finally arrived and, instead of looking pissed or confused about Loki being there, Wanda looked relieved. "Oh, good! You're here! You can turn Bucky and Natasha back to normal."

Clint turned to Wanda, betrayal and confusion in his face. "You knew it was him? And you didn't say anything?"

"Would you have let him into the Tower if I had? Thor, what kept you? I called you days ago and then you leave suddenly after five seconds?"

"Finding Loki takes time when he doesn't wish to be found. Brunhilde and I just needed to get a head start on things."

Brunhilde added, "He was holed up in a hotel with a laptop leaking alternate endings for one your Midgard programs online. Rule of- No. Game of Thrones?"

Sam and Clint both whipped their heads toward the demi god in horror. "You sick son of a bitch."

Loki shrugged, somehow making the movement nonchalant and sinister, sending a chill up Sam's spine.

"Well now we definitely can't trust him to change Nat and Bucky back to normal," Sam decided.

"There are thieves that were also transformed, yeah?" Brunhilde suggested. "He could demonstrate on them?"

Sam and Clint both begrudgingly agreed, but Steve was hesitant to let even known-criminals near Loki, for obvious and well-earned reasons. It took Nat screeching and Barnes jabbing metal claws at Steve for him to get on board, at which point everyone hopped into the elevator and crowded into a room on the other side of a two-way mirror while the cat-ified thieves and Loki sat in an interrogation room.

"For the record, I don't appreciate the obvious lack of trust," Loki told the group.

"Maybe don't brainwash us and try to take over the planet, Littlefinger," Clint retorted through the speakers.

Loki frowned before turning to the three tabby cats on the table. He raised his hands and muttered something in a language that was definitely not Earthly in origin.

Purple and gray smoke began to swirl around the cats, expanding to fill half the room as Loki's voice grew louder and louder. With a final crescendo of words, the cloud mushroomed and the silhouettes of three human figures appeared, keeling over in coughing fits.

"Well shit, that worked," Steve admitted. Bucky meowed at Steve snidely and Steve just waved an annoyed hand at his friend. "Yeah, yeah, I know."

"Was there ever any doubt in my brother's abilities?" Thor crowed.

"Plenty," Clint said. "But whatever, let's get this show on the road. Frosty, get out here. Time to make the magic happen."

The thieves were locked in the interrogation room until they could be transported to the proper authorities, and Loki joined everyone in the viewing room.

He raised his hands over Bucky and Natasha and started muttering in that same foreign language as smoke began to swirl around the cats in purple and gray. Sam and the others all stepped back as far as they could in the tiny room while the cloud expanded and Loki's spell continued.

With a loud crescendo from Loki, the smoke burst and the spell was replaced with coughing from inside the cloud. Through the coughing appeared Barnes and Romanoff, human again and still dressed in their tac gear from the mission.

"Godammit, that's not- Cough! Cough! I think I have another hairball or something," Romanoff hacked out. Barnes coughed alongside her and genuinely looked like he was going be sick.

"There!" Thor proclaimed. "A rousing success!"

Loki clapped his hands together. "You're very welcome. Now I'll be going."

"Ruff!" A large dog barked next to Thor.

Everyone's heads snapped to the dog. The large, rough-coated canine startled at its own voice, eyes going wide and skittish as it took in the sight of its paws and surroundings.

"Oh. That did not happen before," Loki admitted, curious and not at all remorseful.

"Where's Steve?" Bucky noticed. The rough-coated dog ambled toward Bucky and head-butted his legs. "Wait, are you…? Oh. Oh shit."

"And where's Clint?" Sam asked.

"Ruff ruff!" A second dog joined in, a German shepherd mixed with something softer and decidedly more playful.

"That's Clint?" The second dog, maybe Clint, was glancing around in surprise when it caught sight of its own tail. Intrigued, it began reaching for it, circling faster and faster in its efforts to snag the appendage.

"Definitely Clint," Natasha sighed.

"We're NOT calling Strange," Wanda insisted. Vision looked ready to disagree but held back.

Several humans and two exasperated Asgardians turned to Loki. "I will fix it post-haste," Loki said with a fake flourish.

"Just hurry," Sam told him. "Before Clint and Steve decide playing fetch is their new favorite thing."

Rhodey snapped to attention. "Hold on, they're not going after my shoes, are they? You're not taking my other shoes! They've seen enough action. I don't even know if they're in-state anymore."

Barnes glanced at Steve-the-dog. Steve growled at his friend at the very mention of such an activity.

"Your loss buddy," Bucky shrugged. "It was actually kinda fun messing with all of you. The shoes under the trucks, those stupid holiday lights in storage, flowers in the air vents…"

"Back up," Sam interrupted. "What happened with the holiday lights?"

Bucky and Natasha shared a blank, yet shockingly meaningful look. "Nothing…"

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

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